Thomas Van Shipp
Born May 30, 2018
at 11:50am
8lbs 0oz
19.5 inches
I'll begin the story of Thomas' birth on May 29th (his official due date) when I went to the doctor for my 40 week checkup, where I had Dr. Watabe strip my membranes and I was already dilated to 3cm. I remember he told me that if I had strong contractions, but they were around 7 minutes apart, I should come to the hospital because things probably would progress quickly. That night, I enjoyed a normal night out at book club. ;)
The next morning was the day of my scheduled induction. I really wanted to have Thomas in May (not June; I felt like Delilah should be able to have June to herself since their birthdays would be so close together), so against my normal philosophy I scheduled an induction for the 30th. I woke up at 7am (in my bed--a rare occurance the last few weeks of this pregnancy since it became very painful in my pelvic area to sleep on my side, so I took to sleeping on the sofa most nights) and got a text from my Mom asking if there was any progress. Being prangry (pregnant-angry) by this point, I was bugged by the reminder that NO, I was not in fact in labor and I would have to be induced.
I finally got out of bed around 7:25am and decided to take a shower and do my hair for the big day. Trevor went downstairs to work while we waited for the call from the hospital for our scheduled induction time. As I prepared to get in the shower, I started noticing that my braxton hicks contractions (something I had very frequently this pregnancy, especially toward the end, and sometimes pretty strong, but not too painful) were stronger than they had ever felt before. As I was in the shower, I realized the contractions were actually pretty painful, too. However, they still seemed like braxton hicks contractions since my belly would harden. In my past two pregnancies, my labor contractions were pretty obviously different from the braxton hicks, so I was hesitant to be optimistic that I could actually be in labor.
By the time I got out of the shower, I called Trevor upstairs and tentatively told him, "You might want to call your Mom to have her start coming, because I think I'm feeling some real contractions. They're pretty painful." I didn't want to be an alarmist, though, and was a little afraid of being wrong, but it seemed like the right call to have her start coming over to our house to watch Charlie and Delilah.
For the next hour, I got ready for the day. I curled my hair and put on a little make up (I guess if I know I'm going to have a baby, I might as well look good! Ha!) while contracting at irregular intervals. Some would come every 5 minutes while sometimes I'd have a break for 15 minutes or so. It really had me second-guessing whether or not I was really in labor.
Around 9am, the hospital called to ask if I could arrive for my scheduled induction at 10am. I told them I would try (it's a 25 minute drive to the hospital), but we were still waiting for Jill to arrive to watch the older kids. I asked if it was okay if we were a little late and she said it would be okay if it was around 10:15or so. By this point, my contractions had become obviously painful and I knew for sure I was in labor on my own, although the contractions weren't consistent in their timing.
By 9:30am, Trevor's mom still hadn't arrived, although we knew she was on her way and getting really close. (I later learned that when he asked her to come he didn't tell her it was urgent so that's why she took a little while to get ready and arrive. Ha!) I was starting to panic a little because I knew I was in labor and I knew we had a scheduled time at the hospital. We got the bag in Trevor's car and then I sat inside, waiting, ready to go the moment she showed up. Her car drove down the street at 9:48am. A quick hug and a few instructions later, we were on our way. I swear I had at least 10 contractions on the drive to the hospital and kept saying "oh no, not another one!" I would close my eyes, hold on tight, breathe and count my breaths while each contraction passed.
We arrived at the hospital at 10:15am. I had a contraction in the parking lot, one in the elevator, and one at the check-in desk on the labor and delivery floor. I feel fortunate that they already had a room prepared and nurse waiting for me because of my scheduled induction. I got into my room right away and changed into the hospital gown. The nurse checked my dilation and I believe I was around 5 or 6cm. My memory is a little foggy as it's been nearly two months. ;) I remember requesting an epidural right away because I was quite done laboring on my own thank-you-very-much. I was shortly informed that the anesthesiologist was finishing up with another patient and had one other to do before getting to me. In the meantime I did my best to calmly make it through contractions, counting and breathing. It was very obvious at this point there would be no induction needed.
I believe the anesthesiologist arrived around 11am to give me my epidural. I made Trevor come hold my hand through the contractions around this time. He later told me I was squeezing so hard it hurt him. I had no idea I could even squeeze that hard. The epidural was placed about 10 minutes later, but they had to go find a syringe of the medicine because he didn't have one on hand. By 11:20 or so, I was panicking that the epidural wasn't helping as much as I expected (so much pain!) and requested that the anesthesiologist come back to check things. He gave me a booster of some sort of quicker-acting medication and left. I think it took the edge off the pain, but I was still feeling a lot of what was going on.
Around 11:30am I had a monster contraction that I remember moaning and almost yelling through, despite the epidural. At the end I felt a weird pop, and a few seconds later the sensation of warm fluid. I turned and told the nurse, "I think my water just broke!" This had never happened to me before and was definitely an interesting, new sensation. She checked my dilation at this point and I was basically fully dilated to 9.5cm! I couldn't believe I had transitioned with very little pain management! And so quickly, too! I heard the panic in the nurse's voice as she said she would need to page Dr. Watabe right away. She hoped he would get there in time and I remember her "complaining" about the fact that I was in the labor and delivery room where she always had to deliver babies because they came so fast. Haha!
From here on out, things were a whirlwind for me. My memories of birth are a rush of moments and I'll do my best to describe what happened. It felt like Dr. Watabe arrived just moments after being paged (bless him!) and was ready to help me push. It was strictly business at this point. I remember the sensation of needing to push (I was in so much pain, and pushing made the pain go away. Nature is amazing!). We did 3-4 10-second pushes with each set and I could tell I was making good progress. I rested a little between each set, but my contractions were coming quickly. I also remember feeling myself poop and being so embarrassed and apologizing to everyone. The fact that I had the mental capacity to care about that at this point is kind of hilarious in hind sight.
After four sets of pushes and for the first time feeling the sensation of the "ring of fire" (although probably somewhat dulled by my semi-effective epidural), baby's head came out and with the next push, and a little aid from Dr. Watabe, the rest of him came too at 11:50am. I remember resting my head back with my hands on my face, crying with the relief of giving birth. Dr. Watabe asked me if I wanted to look and see what gender the baby was, since we kept it a surprise the entire pregnancy. I leaned forward to look, immediately saw his boy parts, and exclaimed "Oh! It's a boy!". Cue the waterworks again. I vaguely remember Dr. Watabe asking Trevor if he wanted to cut the umbilical cord, and despite saying "no thanks" to the nurse earlier when he was asked, he took the scissors and cut the cord. It made me so happy that he got to be involved in that way.
After the umbilical cord was cut, they put Thomas directly onto me. He was my first baby where I got to hold him straight out of the womb before he was cleaned up. I distinctly remember his blue-gray color, the sticky wetness of his skin and hair, and the specific yet un-describable smell of the fluids he had just emerged from. It was amazing. It took him a good minute to start crying and he sounded gurgly at first due to swallowing some of the amniotic fluid on the way out. Once he did start crying, he was pretty agitated and hard to calm down for the next hour or so. I remember lots of screaming and feeling sad for him and hoping he was okay. I guess my whirlwind labor was quite the whirlwind for him, too.
About an hour after giving birth, I was transferred to the recovery room on the second floor. My legs were so numb from the now effective epidural (eye roll), that I had to be helped into a wheelchair and rolled to my new room.
In the afternoon on the 31st, Trevor brought Charlie and Delilah to meet little Thomas and to bring us home. Delilah was excited to see him, but then got really scared and nervous to get up on the bed with me. It was totally unexpected. I thought she'd be in heaven. Charlie was happy to see Thomas, but was definitely more interested in exploring the fun lights, switches, and machines in my hospital room.
